EWA Reporting Fellowship

Low enrollment and financial troubles have caused a slew of Vermont’s small, independent colleges to shut their doors. What’s causing the problem — and is there a solution?

VPR’s Amy Noyes, who has been reporting on higher ed in Vermont with a fellowship from the Education Writers Association, has answers to these three questions:

“Why are student populations shrinking?” — Diana Clark, South Burlington

Jieie Chen and Dong Xuan felt a strong connection to the University of Minnesota long before they arrived from China with their son, Ken, an incoming freshman.

They had spent hours online researching the university. They had heard the director of the U’s Beijing office make a case for joining the “Gophers family” at a meeting with admitted students in Shanghai last spring. They had later taken in testimonials from U students and alumni at one of the orientations the university hosts in China each summer.

Unlike lecture courses, online programs allow students to plug away at their own speed on problems matched to their individual learning needs — a format that works well for some students. But there are also pitfalls to that approach.

Learning to read is arguably the most important academic experience students will have during their school years. But it’s not a given.

The “nation’s report card” shows that just 35 percent of 4th graders are proficient readers. That’s despite decades of cognitive research clarifying exactly which skills students need to be taught to read fluently.

Last week brought the first early decision deadlines for high school seniors applying to college — and also a lot of potential questions: Just what is early decision and how does it differ from early action? Have college admissions changed since the “Varsity Blues” scandal broke earlier this year? How do college admissions officers view Vermont’s new proficiency-based grading systems? What are the admissions options at Vermont colleges and universities?

Detroit graduates must navigate patchy academic preparation, culture shock, and often their own shaken confidence if they are to stay enrolled and on track to earn a degree that is their best chance to jump into the middle class as adults.

The four students all received enough scholarship and grant money to cover their college costs. But as the lead-up to the first day of class made clear, there’s much more to college than paying the bills.

In the United States, and for roughly 191,000 students seeking public education in Montana, a degree has been a steppingstone to the American Dream, an opportunity for security and prosperity.

But from elementary school to college, the path forward for Heitman, Bullshoe, Valyent and others is steep.

Throughout the Montana University System, enrollment and retention are challenges. As the trajectory of high school graduates has fallen and flattened, public campuses have fought to maintain students, but in Montana, most schools have lost them in recent years.

YAT, short for the Youth Accountability Team, is a program run by the Riverside County Probation Department with the mission of diverting at-risk youths from the criminal justice system. According to the Probation Department’s website, YAT has intervention teams in 17 school districts who work with students between ages of 12 and 17 who struggle with substance abuse, mental health, poor academics, defiance and other problematic behaviors.

The Kansas City area is home to three agencies that work with the federal government to resettle people displaced from their home countries by war, conflict and persecution. Those agencies — Jewish Vocational Services, Della Lamb Community Services and Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas — welcome enough people to make refugee families a presence in the metro.

While not all resettled refugees find their way to a college campus, educators say those who do are highly motivated.

Illinois could save millions of dollars on incarceration costs if the federal ban on Pell Grants for inmates was lifted, according to a new report from the Vera Institute of Justice. Pell Grants are awarded to low-income undergraduate students to help them pay for college. The report, called “Investing in Futures: Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison,” cites numerous economic and other benefits to states across the country if prisoners were able to apply for and receive federal Pell Grants.

At Helena College, a 26-year-old student raising her daughter alone schedules class around her job at a grocery store. Stephanie Heitman’s paychecks were going toward unpaid medical bills until her small college helped with a grant.

When Tristin Bullshoe landed at the University of Montana after growing up in Browning, he struggled to pursue his dream of being a doctor. He landed in a college lecture hall with 300 people after graduating high school with a class of 12, and the Blackfeet student faced culture shock.

Sharon Braat is glad she’s going to college in the Netherlands and not the U.S.

It’s not just the nearly-free tuition her country offers. It’s the practical and hands-on classes aimed at her career. In her case, it also includes real work for actual businesses while in school.

“Our system is better for preparing you for where you want to go,” she said. “You feel like you’re in a company… If you screw up, you can screw up big time. It’s the real world.” 

U.S. public education is rooted in the belief by early American leaders that the most important knowledge to impart to young people is what it means to be a citizen. If America is experiencing a civic crisis now, as many say it is, schools may well be failing at that job.

In North Carolina, where minority students make up 52 percent of the traditional public school body, 80 percent of teachers are white. For students of color, especially black and Hispanic boys, that means they may seldom – or never – have a teacher who looks like them during their kindergarten through 12th grade years.

Next year, the Common Application used by hundreds of colleges and universities will stop asking potential students about their criminal histories. Despite legislative efforts in Illinois, most campuses in the state continue to ask the question. Nationwide, roughly two-thirds of colleges and universities that completed a 2009 survey reported asking prospective students about their criminal histories.